JERUSALEM Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has declared an end to “all agreements, including security coordination” with Tel Aviv amid Israeli violations against the Palestinians.
“After all the violations committed against our people, we announce the cessation of all agreements signed with Israel,” tweeted Abbas on Thursday.
Abbas stressed that the suspension would also include “security coordination” between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Tel Aviv regime.
Abbas made the announcement following an emergency meeting held at the presidential headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday.
Palestine’s official WAFA news agency had reported earlier that the meeting had been adjourned to discuss Israel’s blocking of PA tax revenues, continued settlement construction and Palestinian displacement.
During the meeting, the Palestinian president said that the PA leadership had decided to lay out “mechanisms” to establish a committee implementing the decision amid continued “Israeli violations”.
“The Israeli occupation authority has decided to ignore all its obligations in accordance with the agreements signed with it. It continues to kill Palestinian citizens, arrest them, demolish their houses and confiscate their lands,” said Abbas in the meeting.
Abbas further denounced the US-designated “deal of the century” as a further flagrant violation of Palestinian rights.
“We will not coexist with the occupation and we will not deal with the deal of deal of the century, or the slap of the century or the deal of shame – all names for one title. Palestine and Jerusalem are not for sale and bargain. They are not a real estate deal in a real estate company,” he said.
The “deal of the century”, formulated by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is yet to be officially released. The so-called “peace deal” will reportedly deny Palestinians any right to a sovereign Palestinian state, while claiming to provide economic incentives in exchange.
Signaling a tougher stance against Tel Aviv amid the so-called “deal”, Abbas also called for the implementation of an earlier reconciliation deal with the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement.
Hamas and Fatah have been at odds since Fatah won the Palestinian parliamentary elections Gaza in January 2006, splitting control over the Palestinian territories between the West Bank-based Fatah party and the Gaza-based resistance movement.
Later on Thursday, Hamas issued a statement expressing support for Abbas decision as a step taken in right direction, adding that people were waiting for its immediate realization.
The movement also called for the establishment of a national unity government.
Israel steps up violations of PAs authority
According to the WAFA news agency, the meeting came specifically in response to the record demolition of 10 Palestinian apartment buildings in the Sur Baher village situated in the occupied West Bank earlier this week.
Tel Aviv claims the buildings had been constructed illegally and built too close to Israels apartheid wall in the West Bank.
Palestinian sources, however, say that the restrictions, imposed in 2011, had never been seriously enforced and that Israel was using it as a pretext to displace Palestinians as part of long-term settlement expansion efforts.
The demolition has prompted international condemnation. The US, however, blocked a draft United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution denouncing Tel-Aviv on Wednesday.
The demolitions, seen as a further violation of the Palestinian Authority’s legal jurisdiction over the West Bank, come as the Israeli government has frozen about $138 million of Palestinian tax revenues belonging to the Palestinian Authority.
Tel Aviv has said it has withheld the sum on grounds that the money is distributed to current and former Palestinian prisoners convicted of “terrorism”.
The PA says the payments are a form of welfare stipend to the families who have lost their main breadwinner. The stipends benefit roughly 35,000 families of the Palestinians killed and wounded by Israel.
Palestinian President Abbas has defended the payments as an important function of his administration amid the West Bank’s deteriorating economic condition.
According to a World Bank report issued in April, about 160,000 PA employees have gotten only half their salaries during the past months. Unemployment in the West Bank has gone up to over 30 percent and the dispute over the withheld tax revenues is likely to drive up the PAs existing debt from $400 million to $1 billion.
The US Trump Administration also made sweeping aid cuts to the Palestinian territories last year.
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